Analysis of Results

/ EUROPEAN COMMISSION
EUROSTAT
Directorate F: Social and Information Society Statistics /
Doc. CR/TF2/2010/2
indicators to be produced
task force on victimisation
luxembourg, 21-22 june 2010
jean monnet building, room M4

Analysis of results

The Expert Group on Policy Needs of Data on Crime and Criminal Justice, during their January meeting requested an active involvement in the development of the European Security Survey. Responding to this request, Eurostat, at the last meeting of the working group on crime statistics (February 2010), asked the Expert Group to provide key indicators which will be calculated based on the collected data in 2013. The issue was first discussed at the meeting of the sub-group on planning, March 16, where it was decided to draft and circulate to the members of the Expert Group a list of possible indicators asking them to express their priorities based on the needs and characteristics of their Member State. Prof. Jan Van Dijk, who is a member of the Expert Group, kindly, offered his help in the drafting of this list which was sent out in April 2010.

The first results were presented at the meeting of the Task Force on victimisation, 29 April 2010, where it was decided to extend the deadline of the exercise so as to receive as many replies as possible. Despite the reminders, none of the remaining Member States answered to our request. A summary of the results is presented below; the original questionnaire is listed in Annex 1; all answers to the open questions together with the general comments can be found in the Annex 2.

A) RESPONSE RATE

Only 13 of the 27 Member States (48%) contributed in this survey. One of the reasons for this low rate is the fact that some of the representatives have changed position and therefore contact details, without informing us and without identifying their successors. Two Member States revised their position after the Task Force meeting in April. Only their most recent replies have been considered.

Table 1

Respondents / Num. of replies
Member States / 13
Candidate Countries / 1
International Organisations / 2
Academia / 1
Total / 17

B) REPLIES TO THE QUESTIONS

1st Question Experts were asked to rate the policy relevance of each of crime types addressed in the questionnaire according to the priorities of their Member State. The possible answers were: "indispensible", "important" and "optional" Each of them was attributed a score: indispensible = 3, important = 2, optional = 1. The average score of each crime type was calculated and the results are listed below:

Table 2

Question 1
Crime Types / Average Score
Burglary / 3.0
Robbery / 3.0
Sexual offences by strangers / 2.8
Assaults by strangers / 2.8
Theft of personal property / 2.8
Sexual offences by intimates / 2.8
Assaults by intimates / 2.6
Card / on-line banking fraud / 2.6
Theft of car / 2.5
Theft from car / 2.5
Consumer fraud (product and service) / 2.5
Attempted burglary / 2.4
Bribery / 2.4
Identity fraud / 2.3
Bicycle theft / 2.2
Motorcycle / moped theft / 2.2
Threats by strangers / 2.2
Threats by intimates / 2.2
Car vandalism / 1.9
Household vandalism / 1.8

Comments on Question 1

At the same time the Experts provided a number of comments some of which concerned existing crime types and others crimes that they, as representatives of the MSs, would like to see in the final module. A summary of the written comments is given in the table below:

Table 3

Crime Type / Num of Comments
Burglary / 2
Bribery / 2
Violence / 4
Other types[1] / 5
General Comments[2] / 3
Total / 15

Types of crime not included in the questionnaire but identified by the experts:

Counterfeit goods (victim of counterfeited goods, i.e. deceived customer, access to counterfeited goods)
Drugs (how easy it is to find drugs to buy)
Cybercrime

2nd Question A draft list of proposed indicators was provided to the experts, who were asked to characterise each of them as “indispensable”, “important”, “optional” or “redundant”. Following the same technique (indispensible = 3,…, redundant = 0) the average score was calculated for each indicator and the results are presented in Table 4

Table4

Question 2
Indicators / Average Score
Q2.3: % of households/persons victimized by each of the crime categories / 2.8
Q2.1: Response rate and mode / 2.8
Q2.2: Total % of victims, excluding consumer fraud and bribery / 2.8
Q2.15: Satisfaction with police performance / 2.7
Q2.6: % of respondents worrying about burglary / 2.6
Q2.5: Composite index of worry about crime / 2.5
Q2.4: % of households/persons victimized by grouped crime categories / 2.3
Q2.8: % of respondents worrying about family members to be assaulted / 2.3
Q2.19: Public attitudes towards punishment / 2.3
Q2.16: Satisfaction with the courts / 2.2
Q2.17: Index victim satisfaction with police services / 2.2
Q2.10: % of households with burglar alarm / 2.2
Q2.12: % of households with special door locks / 2.1
Q2.9: % of respondents exposed to drug-related crimes / 1.8
Q2.11: % of respondents owing weapons / 1.8
Q2.7: % of respondents worrying about terrorism / 1.8
Q2.14: % of respondents that prefer to go out in a group after dark / 1.8
Q2.18: % of victims who have received support from a specialised agency / 1.7
Q2.13: % of respondents taking courses of self defence / 1.2

Question 2.4 was treated separately although its overall average was calculated and reported in the table 4

Table 5

Question 2.4
Grouped Crime categories / Average scores
Contact crimes / 2.8
Burglary or attempted burglary / 2.8
Violence by intimates / 2.5
Car-related crimes / 2.3
Total fraud / 2.2
Other theft / 2.2
Bribery / 2.0
Vandalism / 1.8

Comments on Question 2

A number of indicators, additionally to the existing list, were proposed by the experts. However, only seriousness of the offence and satisfaction with the performance of the prosecution were mentioned more than once.

Other indicators proposed:

- Percentage of respondents who were victims of the same crime more than once

- Percentage of victims who reported to the police, by type of crime

- Percentage of respondents victimized by crimes involving weapons (knives, firearms)

- Percentage of victims who suffered physical injury

- Victim-offender relationship

- percentage of victims who did not report to the police or other agencies the crime they had fallen victim of

- five typical reasons why victims as specified in suggested indicator above omitted to report crime (e.g.: bagatelle crime (petty offence), fear, shame, intimate offender or offender of close acquaintance, former negative experience with police or law enforcement)

- percentage of respondents owing security and/or self defence items other than firearms/weapons (e.g.: knife, sprays, sticks, etc.)

3rd Question

Experts were asked whether they agree with Eurostat’s initiative to propose a legal basis for the survey and whether they have comments on the articles of the proposed regulation

The majority of the Member States are in favour of the proposed regulations.

4th Question

Experts were asked whether they agree with the proposed time schedule (data collection 2nd semester 2013, transmission by 31 October 2014, dissemination by March 2015) and what they would consider as reasonable time between the end of the fieldwork and the dissemination of the data.

Given that preference for the fieldwork in the first semester does not mean objection to the overall proposed time schedule, we conclude that there is a clear divergence of views.

Annex 1: Questionnaire sent to the Expert Group on Policy Needs of Data on Crime and Criminal Justice

Seventeen pilot exercises have been carried out to translate and test a module on crime victimisation. These pilot exercises are currently being evaluated for Eurostat by a team of experts from the universities of Tilburg (Intervict) and Lausanne. An intermediate evaluation was available for the meeting of the working group of Eurostat in February 2010. A synthesis of this report can be found in our CIRCA site under the directory "EU Security Survey". Based on the comments provided by the Member States that participated in the pilot exercise, the team of experts proposed some changes on the structure and the content of the questionnaire. The current, revised EU Security Survey Questionnaire has the following parts:

Interviewer introduction

Personal and household information
Worries about crime
Victimisation screening questions
Victimisation forms
Attitudes to law enforcement and security precautions
Additional personal and household information

1ST QUESTION: The table below contains the types of crime covered in the screening questions. Considering the amount of work that has gone into the design of a well-balanced questionnaire and the advanced stage of fieldwork preparations, it seems unadvisable to radically alter this core part of the questionnaire. Nevertheless, it is important to have your views on the choice of key indicators that they will be developed based on the collected data. Please give a rating of the policy relevance of each of the crime types according to your priorities by ticking off the appropriate categories.

Crime Types / Indispensable / Important / Optional
Theft of car
Theft from car
Car vandalism
Motorcycle / moped theft
Bicycle theft
Burglary
Attempted burglary
Household vandalism
Robbery
Theft of personal property
Sexual offences by strangers
Sexual offences by intimates
Assaults by strangers
Assaults by intimates
Threats by strangers
Threats by intimates
Consumer fraud (product and service)
Card / on-line banking fraud
Identity fraud
Bribery

Are there any other types of crime that you would consider indispensible for an ESS which are not included in the current list? Please specify.

2nd QUESTION: Eurostat's Working group has asked the Commission and the Expert Group on Policy Needs to define and prioritise the indicators that will be calculated and published based on the data collected during the survey. A draft list of the indicators we propose is given below. Please characterise each of the indicators as "indispensable", "important", "optional" or "redundant" by ticking the appropriate box. Note that Eurostat will make available the complete set of data for further scientific analysis after the publication of the agreed key indicators.

1. Response rate per Member State and mode (s) of data collection (i.e. interview method: CAPI, CATI etc)